


To Whom He Knew

by fifthnorthumberland



Category: BBC Sherlock, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, M/M, No established relationship, Post Reichenbach, Reunion, Reunions, Safe For Work, Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-25 01:49:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fifthnorthumberland/pseuds/fifthnorthumberland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When afternoons stretched into nothingness, when he can’t think for all the nothing there is, he goes to John’s room.  When he’s on a case he can’t crack and his brain is boiling up to a hot hot soup, when it’s all too much and he can’t think for all of it prickling behind his skull, he goes to John’s bedroom.</p>
<p>It’s quiet there, and even though John is never there when Sherlock visits his room, the knowledge that this is where he sleeps is enough to bring back Sherlock from frenzy or a breakdown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Whom He Knew

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Roxane](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Roxane).



To Whom He Knew

When afternoons stretched into nothingness, when boredom loomed from between the creases of the sofa, when the world is melting, slowly and it’s all empty, when he can’t think for all the nothing there is, he goes to John’s room.  When he’s on a case he can’t crack and his brain is boiling up to a hot hot soup, when he paces the living room and stretches on the sofa, when the world is sharp and tugs at him to solve it,  _goddammit_ , when it’s all too much and he can’t think for all of it prickling behind his skull, he goes to John’s bedroom.

It’s quiet there, and even though John is never there when Sherlock visits his room, the knowledge that this is where he _sleeps_ is enough to bring back Sherlock from frenzy or a breakdown.

First, he observes. He looks around the room and takes note of the various details of John’s life, ever changing, ever the same. The amount of clothing in the laundry basket. Whether the bed is made or not. The desk’s drawer’s contents, when John leaves it open. The state of John’s shoes. Whether the window has been opened or not. The little things that indicate that John was here, not too long ago, and that he will return. He never touches anything, never disturbs any of it. He knows John wouldn't notice, but Sherlock would know and somehow that counts.

In mid-September, once, Sherlock had gone to John’s room while John was at the clinic after he’d forced himself into what seemed to be an anxiety attack. It was for a case, an old one, a cold case Lestrade had handed him months before. He was attempting to recreate the victim’s mindset at the moment of the attack. A bit too realistically, perhaps. When his heart was beating too fast and he couldn't focus on anything concrete and he felt like he was going to implode, he made his way up the stairs to John’s bedroom.

He had scanned the room, but nothing he looked at gave him something to see; he couldn't process or even acquire information. So he lay on the hardwood floor and stared at the ceiling, breathing. A minute or two passed and he felt normal once more, if a bit disoriented. Sherlock got up and took in the state of John’s shoes; the mud from puddles on the way from the clinic –no, Tesco- and the new scratches on the leather from their impromptu chase around a construction site. The information, however insignificant, flooded in perfectly well and Sherlock sighed in relief.

After observing, what usually came were the deductions Sherlock could make about John. Things he already knew about his friend, or, rarely, new things. Like that John had spent this Thursday afternoon with a man who owned a poodle or that he’d had chicken curry for lunch. As irrelevant as these may have been, he stored it away in his mind, with things that sound like “home” and “familiar”.

What he was doing, really, was going back to what he knew. To whom he knew.

And now, a few months after his “death”, the great detective is aching to have a place to go to, a way to refocus, to start _thinking_ again. Because now he can’t stop thinking. He has to think fast, now, quickly. He’s got time, but every second spent in these shadows, doing all that he can to end and erase Jim Moriarty’s trace, is spent away from London and Baker Street and Lestrade, Molly, Mrs. Hudson, _John_. And every second away from John, who thinks Sherlock dead, is a second more spent profaning John’s name.

He’d find cocaine to help him focus, to see a bit clearer through the webs, but he can’t afford to sin so. Not when John might still want him, when he can still fulfill John’s “one more miracle”, and come back. He won’t find cocaine because he _has_ to come back, to John. To home.

So he digs his palms into his eyes and wishes for a cigarette, but does nothing about it except send an annoyed text to Mycroft _“Remind me again why I can’t call him?”_ He doesn't sign with his typical _SH_ because Mycroft knows where these texts are coming from, even if the number changes from time to time, and because, if Sherlock is honest with himself, he’s only a fraction of himself now. He’s thriving; more brilliant than ever, but he’s on survival mode. He’s in a war-zone of his own, solving puzzle after puzzle at a quickening pace, and he’s only just begun. He arranges captures and produces evidence accusing variant types of criminals sitting on Jim Moriarty’s web and condemning them to vanish from the streets of London and Havana and Munich and Paris and Toronto and Washington and New York, and he never loses count. He keeps a ledger, in his mind, and scratches across a new name every few days. It feels good, like progress, but he doesn’t enjoy the victories. There is, after all, no one to tell him how brilliant he is and to whisper sweet _sweet_ expressions of awe at his deductions. There is no one to speak to, not even the skull, and Sherlock wants to hurl things across his hotel room from time to time, to hear something shatter and break and _stop_ because his mind won’t anymore.

So he lies on the floor of whatever room he is staying in that night, and fetches that mental folder of things that sound like “home” and “familiar” and “John”, and he goes through it, at random. He filters through data concerning John or the moments they spent together and he finds things he hadn’t noticed before. It frustrates him sometimes, because he needs to test theories and John would tell him if Sherlock is right, were he to ask, wouldn’t he? And, sometimes, he pretends like he’s lying on the floor on John’s room. It takes Sherlock more time, as the months go by, to remember the details that make up John’s bedroom, but he does and as he puts them all together and binds them with his growing and obvious affection, his mind goes there, in 221B, up a second flight of stairs and past that door frame, to John’s room. It’s become a haven of some sort. A safe place to go when his own mind might eat him alive. Oddly enough, he doesn’t grow tired of this, even after three years.

***

When he comes back, Sherlock will tell John about how he clung to him to cope with his absence. He’ll tell him all about what he’s done, confess his sins, and wait for absolution, for John’s forgiveness. He’ll pray to him every morning with a cup of coffee and a hand on his shoulder and a word or two, if John will hear them. He’ll say “I’m here” and John will know.

He tells himself that. And it keeps him going.

***

Sherlock hadn't anticipated what happens when he comes back. He hadn't imagined it to be possible to still be clinging to John. And yet he is. He holds onto a very real, very solid, very _present_ John. And John holds him and Sherlock, finally, sighs in relief.

 


End file.
